


The Outbreak: Treatment

by MrsAlderaan



Series: The Outbreak [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Camp Nanowrimo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 14:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsAlderaan/pseuds/MrsAlderaan
Summary: What would you do if you were told the survival rate for a cure was one in ten? The odds are stacked against you, but the choice is this or certain death.





	The Outbreak: Treatment

**Author's Note:**

> Part two of The Outbreak Series. Also Day 6 of my Camp NaNoWriMo 30 Days, 30 Stories Challenge. The prompt:
> 
> She was one of the few who survived the initial treatment.

One in ten. That was the chance of survival they told me when I was given the initial treatment. I’d made it all the way to Georgia, crossing five state lines in the process, and they told me that I had a one in ten chance of surviving their so called ‘cure’. Meaning that, nine out of ten times, I would have to be shot in the head before I turned after my inevitable death. Still, it was better for the world as a whole to have it coursing through my veins than to go without it.

From what I was told, the thought behind the cure was that there is no cure to becoming a zombie; the zombie virus will kill you and you will become one of them. If you’re bitten, you’re dead, but, with this treatment, we can take out the ones that overtook you in the process. The injection, essentially, makes your blood or something poisonous to the zombies. Really, the scientific mumbo jumbo all went over my head in the debriefing. All I know is that I was being prepped by some clearly scared shitless doctor who made a tasteless joke about why she was even bothering to sanitize the injection area if ninety percent of us were going to die anyway.

What I do remember from the meeting was that if I was the one in ten to survive, they would take samples of my blood to find out why I lived. This way, they could hopefully improve the survival rate for this weird cure thing.

A short while later, I was laying on a makeshift bed, with an IV stuck into my arm. Everyone had to have a bag of fluids before they could go through with the treatment, so I was in the middle of a stark white hallway, lined with chairs, cots, and sleeping bags. Across the hall from me was a hugely buff African American man who had clearly beaten the gym. At a certain point, there’s nothing else to do right? You can just quit, guy. “Where’re you from?” He asked when he noticed me staring curiously. His gaze met mine, and I looked down meekly- still not used to small chat even during the friggin’ apocalypse.

“Arizona.” I answered quickly, not bothering to give him any fluff or filler. One of us was likely to be dead the next day anyhow. “How about you?” I asked quietly, hearing similar conversations up and down the entire hall.

He smiled a huge, white smile that made me grin back. He just had this jovial nature about him that could bring a smile to your face. “Texas, from up in the pan handle. I can’t believe that you made it so far. How was Arizona? I heard…

“That the zeds don’t last long there?” I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, we were pretty lucky that it’s summer there. If you really think about it, the zombies are decaying flesh. Put decaying flesh out in one hundred degree weather for long enough, and you’ve just got a bunch of really smelly zombie meat. “Wouldn’t Texas be similar?”

His smile waned for a second. “It should’ve been, but I guess the infection hit Texas during a Cowboy’s football game. Our stadium…”

I gasped in shock. “Oh my god! How many?”

“Probably a little under 100,000 at this point. The people that could get away didn’t think about barring the doors at first. When somebody finally did the deed, well, who knows how many of those things actually made it out before then.” He ran his fingers back on his scalp, as if raking his fingers through the non-existent hair. I silently wondered to myself how long he had been bald, clearly, he’d worn hair at a certain point in his life.

Before the conversation could continue, a nurse made the announcement that we would begin the treatment. There was a mixture of responses from the crowded hallway. Some were cheers of happiness, others were boos of disgust. Clearly, the thought that many of our newfound comrades in the hallway dying was not a favorable thought. Still, the hallway was flooded with as many doctors, nurses, and other techs that could be spared. Within minutes, we all had the vile red liquid coursing through our veins. Not long after that, a doctor came by, offering morphine to the group. He explained that, after about an hour, we would all experience a horrible burning sensation, and many of the group opted to take the pain medicine in order to sleep through the worst of it. Most of the group accepted the offer. When the doctor got to me, I held my hand up into the universal symbol for ‘stop’, shaking my head ‘no’ emphatically. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

The man across from me whose name I never learned did the same. “If she can go without, so can I.”

I looked over at him, eyes widening in wonder at the proud man before me. “What’s your name, anyway? I don’t think I ever asked.”

“My friends call me TJ.” He answered smoothly. I imagined that, in another world, I would have fallen for that silky smooth voice. Now, I simply wondered if that beautiful smile would survive the night. “What’s yours, sweetheart?”

Involuntarily, I smiled at his use of the colloquialism. “I’m Tara.” I answered shyly. “Nice to meet you.”

The moment could have easily been described as romantic,  we were both so wrapped up in each other's eyes, but it was drawn to an abrupt close by the first screams from the other end of the hallway where the doctors had administered the treatment first. I took a huge, nervous gulp when I saw a few of the nurses rush over and remove the screaming woman from the hallway. That could easily be me soon, and I hadn’t even had the morphine. I quickly began rummaging through my bag, finally stumbling upon what I was looking for. Without explaining why, I shoved one of my clean(ish) socks into my mouth, biting down hard before closing my eyes to wait for the worst.

At some point during the night, I must’ve passed out from the pain. I woke up to find myself staring blearily at a pale white ceiling. When I sat up, I felt intensely dizzy, and I noticed that at least eighty of the one hundred people who were posted up in the hallway were missing. One in ten, I remembered. I was one of the few that had survived the initial treatment.


End file.
